By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 



51 



brought from the house at Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva, inhabited 

 during his banishment by the celebrated Parliamentary General, 

 Edmund Ludlow. On the tablet are the words, " Omne solum 

 forti patria." " Any land is a home to a brave-hearted man." 



Dilton. 



Dilton, within this parish, and ecclesiastically attached to the 

 vicarage, has a little old Church, with a small crocketed spire, close 

 by the railway on the line towards Warminster. Dilton had formerly, 

 what many parishes used to have, a Church house : one kept solely 

 for parish meetings and business. This was built by the parishioners 

 at their own cost on a piece of ground nigh to the Church which 

 they held on a ninety-nine years' lease from Edington Monastery. 

 There was also in Dilton a field called " The Sanctuary," which 

 belonged to the Knights Templars, or Hospitallers of St. John of 

 Jerusalem. This order had a small branch establishment at Ansty, 

 in South Wilts, called " The Commandery of Ansty," which was 

 endowed with bits of land here and there all about the county. 



Dilton Marsh is a different hamlet a little way off, and has a 

 Church, a vicar, and parish officers of its own. The manor house 

 called Dilton Court was no part of the great Pavely estate, but 

 together with Bratton belonged very anciently to the families of 

 Marmion and Dauntsey, 



Dauntsey. 



The Dauntsey family was one of the very oldest in this parish, and 



I think that it must have been from them that were derived by a 



succcesion of marriages the estates that in the last century belonged 



to the Earl of Abingdon. There is a parish in North Wilts of the 



name of Dauntsey which belonged to them, and they had also large 



property at West Lavington. 1 Now, the Dauntseys of Dauntsey 



1 The name of Dauntsey, of Lavington, after being extinct for some hundreds 

 of years, has been lately brought into very prominent notice in such a way that 

 the county is not likely to lose sight of it again. Under the will of a William 

 Dauntsey, a native of Lavington, who died some four hundred years ago, a very 

 large sum of money has been offered by the Mercers' Company in London, to 

 which certain property of his in London had been bequeathed, with certain con- 

 ditions, towards the establishment of a school. 



B % 



